‘Malayalam’ to bridge digital divide in Kerala

While technology has made the world smaller, lack of language computing or knowledge of it continues to hamper the growth of IT usage in rural India. Not one to be detered, the Government of Kerala, last week launched an initiative to help people across the state operate computers in their mother tongue.

Announcing this the state Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan said that the advantage of the Malayalam computing initiative ‘Our Computer Our Language’ will reach 50 lakh families over the next three years.

The first phase of the initiative is aimed towards bridging the digital divide by making people aware of the immense possibilities of Malayalam in computing, he added.

The state government has also launched a website to provide information on how to facilitate the use of Malayalam in computers.

“Once you enable a language in the machine, you can send mails and chat using the language. You need not have to use English. With this initiative we aim to overcome the language barrier, a key obstacle in bridging the digital-divide,” Kerala IT Mission State Coordinator SB Biju said.

The operating systems like Windows XP and Linux have inbuilt facility for this. But most people are not aware of it. No separate software is needed to enable a local language in a computer.

The state government intends to use around 3,000 Akshaya Kendras, information and communication technology (ICT) access points, and schools to popularise Malayalam Computing.

People can go to Akshaya Kendras and learn how to enable Malayalam on their computer. “We also plan to enlighten hardware vendors regarding this,” Biju said.

Kerala has been conducting a total e-literacy drive through Akshaya Kendras. The campaign has been completed in eight districts and the government intends to finish the drive in the remaining six districts by December.

Malayalam Computing is expected to be a boon to new e-literates as it will encourage them to use computers.

“If they don’t use the newly-acquired skills there is a chance that they might forget,” Biju added.